S'pore woman loses over S$100,000 to scammer, was promised investment would pay for kids’ education - Mothership

A Singaporean woman in the finance sector, Ruth (not her real name), was approached by a man looking to buy some insurance.

The man, Rob, had been recommended to her by a friend who had encountered him on a dating app. Her friend had introduced him to Ruth after he mentioned his need for insurance.

In the midst of that purported insurance purchase, the man struck up a conversation on the topic of crypto investments.

Ruth had never done any crypto investments before, and Rob convinced her that, despite the volatile nature of crypto, the stablecoin staking investment would provide no risk.

She would end up losing over S$100,000 over the course of four months.

Rob revealed “personal details” about himself to build trust with Ruth.

He said he had a daughter and showed her pictures of both himself and his daughter.

A reverse image search on Google did not reveal any hits, but when we ran some of the pictures Ruth provided through a different search engine focused on facial features, multiple results of what appeared to be the same man appeared.

Some of these images of the same man appeared on various Chinese websites, including stock photo sites.

It wasn’t just photos either. The man actually carried out video calls with Ruth.

Ruth showed Mothership a video of their call. There were similarities with the man in the photos, though he was not necessarily a dead ringer.

Ruth also acknowledged that the man could have been using an AI filter.

He also claimed to be working for a relatively established energy company in Singapore.

That trust-earning was so meticulous that Rob even sent over a gift after he was invited to Ruth’s daughter’s party.

The gift was in lieu of Rob not being able to make the party.

The man also sent photos of a Malaysian IC he claimed to be his. Checks by Mothership on the IC number he sent over showed no such registered individual.

The scam has all the hallmarks of a pig-butchering scam. And the beats would sound familiar to those who might have followed such cases.

Rob presented a stablecoin as a safe investment, walked her through setting up a crypto wallet and staking.

The first few returns came in without a hitch inside a legitimate, widely used app.

Ruth was told there would need to be a certain amount of money for crypto trading. The amount needed for staking increased exponentially over time. Rob would also assure her that this was a routine part of this kind of trading.

Rob then moved her funds onto another app, Qevorinex, which was significantly less popular. Checks by Mothership show the platform appears to have little to no digital footprint.

Scam Advisor rates it "likely unsafe", and while the owner has hidden their identity, the number associated with the registrant has been brought up in multiple other potential scams online.

When Rob brought up the app to Ruth, she was suspicious due to the "scammish" feel, but was convinced after Rob claimed other legitimate companies and apps might receive negative reviews as well.

That app would soon accuse her of various things, including insider trading.

Penalties and fees soon followed. Ruth said she paid due to a “sense of obligation”. And also to get back the rest of her money, assumed to be locked/frozen due to the penalty.

The app has now apparently been blocked under the Online Criminal Harms Act.

Partly because of what she considered to be an investment for her children, and because some of Rob’s money was purportedly invested in as well.

There were other lies Rob purportedly peddled to stop her from pulling the plug earlier.

When multiple apps prevented her from transferring money due to the unsafe nature of where she was transferring it to, Rob convinced her that they tended to do that because they would not want money out of the banks.

She would end up losing well over S$100,000 before she called an end to the entire thing.

Ruth would file a police report, but this would only be the start of her nightmare.

Rob claimed that some of his money was inside the investment, and that he wanted it back.

Threatening phone calls and messages soon followed.

Why not block and delete the number some might ask?

Ruth said she had initially harboured hopes that she could somehow get the money back, blocking him would put an end to any such possibility.

As of the time of writing, Ruth has blocked the number.

Mothership has reached out to the number but has not gotten a response back.

Those threats felt even more real due to the personal information Ruth had shared with the man, including her address.

According to Ruth, the police have informed her that the number is a spoof number. It will be hard, or even impossible to claw that money back.

No one is more cognisant of that than Ruth.

"I feel horrible daily of course. It’s a huge part of my savings (for the children) gone, and he used my weakness (the kids) to make me invest on this platform, promising that i could take out the money.

But, the truth is the transaction hash shows that the money is gone overseas and cannot be found."

Despite that loss, she hopes sharing this will help future victims avoid something like this.

In response to Mothership's queries, the police said investigations are ongoing.